


always keep your wits sharp, like an axe inside the shed

by strandedAeronaut



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Dream Shenanigans, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Trans Jesse McCree, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 15:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10700139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strandedAeronaut/pseuds/strandedAeronaut
Summary: Jesse has a couple of chats with his past self.Title from Stranger by Ben Caplan





	always keep your wits sharp, like an axe inside the shed

 “It’s not gonna last. You screwed up and got attached, and they’ll leave you, and then you’ll know I’m right.”

 “Fuck off, kid.”

 Jesse sits on the roof of the old gas station next to his sixteen year old self. He was as lanky as he remembered, all elbows and knees, wearing baggy clothes and with shoulders curled inwards to hide the curve of his chest, since binders weren’t safe in the heat of the Gorge. He’d been brash, but he hadn’t been stupid, and Deadlocks worked long days. A cheap cigarette sticks out of the corner of his lopsided grin as he scoffs at his older self.

 “Haven’t been a _kid_ for years. Why are you even here, if you don’t want my advice? Seems to me like you forgot all we learned out here. What’s our number one rule, huh?”

 He hates dreams like this. “ _Yours_ is that trust is for suckers. Mine is to take the time to get shit right first instead of rushing in blind and stupid.”

 His younger self scoffs again. “That only works if someone’s making sure you don’t get shot in the back while you fool around making plans. Overwatch made you _soft_ , dumbass, and my guess is you won’t survive when you're out of it.”

 “Yeah?”

 “Yeah. Your gods are gonna fall, and you’re gonna realize they’re real people, and real people let you down. And they’re gonna take you down with them, and they’re not gonna catch you. You’re gonna have to catch yourself, and when you do you’re gonna remember me, and you’re gonna wish you’d stayed away from ‘em.”

 “Better to love and lose than never love at all.”

 The younger him laughs, harsh and more cynical than a sixteen year old has any right to be. “Sure, sure. Hey.” He produces a pair of beer bottles. Cheap, shitty beer, but that was how he did things, back then. “Beer on me, for a poor doomed sonofabitch.”

 “I don’t drink anymore.”

 “Wow. Are you even me? That’s lame, but suit yourself. More for me, anyway.” His younger self pops the cap off one of the bottles and takes a swig, and the movement is so familiar, so practiced. “You know you don’t change anything, right? You take down an empire, and you get to feel all big and powerful, like what you do _means_ something. But people are people, and they’re always gonna do what people do, and that’s fuck up other people for their own gains. Another empire’s gonna pop up, so you’re gonna knock that one down and ‘round and ‘round it’ll go, and nothing’s gonna change.”

 “Shocking wisdom from a kid who doesn’t know jack shit about anything.”

 “I know more than you. I know _you_ better than you. I know how you build up your walls of illusions, ‘cause you try so hard to be an optimist so you try to block out all the shit and focus on the good. But the shit’s still there, and it starts to stink, and that stink leaks through your walls and you can’t figure out why your neat little world smells so bad of shit ‘cause you blocked it all off. Out of sight, out of mind, right?”

 “Jeez. Can you really have any conversation without making some kind of reference to shit?”

 “You’re derailing, because you know I’m right.” He was. Dammit. “You keep trying to see the best in people, because you want so desperately to be like _them_. You wanna be _good_. You wanna be a _hero_ , so you look up to all the big shots and you forget they fuck up just like you do.”

 “I don’t-”

 “You _do_. C’mon. I’m your subconscious. You totally do, and what’s more-”

 They’re interrupted by the beeping of Jesse’s morning alarm filtering through the gas station speakers.

 “Duty calls,” says the younger Jesse, meeting his older self’s eyes and wearing that lopsided grin as he rips off a mock salute.

 Jesse wakes to his dark room. He squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to forget the dream. 

\--

 Four years later, Gabe and Ana are dead. Overwatch is a worldwide regret and Blackwatch is a cautionary tale. He’s spent the past year running.

 His younger self glances at the stump of his arm and sneers. “Told ya so.” He _hates_ dreams like this. He hates it even more today, because he’d been right.

 He’s offered a pair of bottles, one more time. “Beer, for a poor doomed sonofabitch?”

 He takes one, and as one they pop the caps and take a drink. Not much point in following his rules here when he’d broken them in the waking world.

 They’re silent for a little while, and the younger him speaks up. “Sorry it didn’t last.”

 He can’t say anything in response. He doesn’t have the words to describe the horribly empty feeling he tries to fill with alcohol and vigilante justice, on such a small scale that it’s laughable to even think that it makes any kind of difference. He’s kidding himself, trying to fool himself into thinking there’s a reason to keep going.

 “It wasn’t our fault,” he manages.

 His younger self locks eyes with him. Dark brown eyes, tired eyes, older than they should have been. “Never was, was it? There was never anything we could do. About our parents, our family, about Deadlock and Overwatch.” He looks away. “We never had control, even when we isolated ourself. It was always someone else’s decision, and we were along for the ride.”

 “It was good while it lasted. Blackwatch was, I mean.”

 “It was. You were happy, then.”

 There’s silence for a while longer. “What am I going to do?”

 “Not much else to do but keep going.”

 He nods, and stands. He’s been asleep too long. The world will not wait for him, and it’s risky to sleep when there’s bounty hunters on his trail. He tips his hat to his younger self, who raises his bottle in a toast.

 “Take care of yourself out there,” he says. “I live in your head. If it gets splattered all over something I’m dead too.”

 He rolls his eyes, and pinches himself, coming awake in the run-down abandoned house he’d taken shelter in. It was still dark, and a draft told him it was definitely still cold outside. He packed up what little he had that wasn’t already in his bag, and left.


End file.
